West Hartford Officials Discuss High Priority Projects With Sen. Murphy

WEST HARTFORD — — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy met with town officials on Friday to tour sites and discuss projects in town that are federal priorities.

Murphy met with Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle, Town Engineer Duane Martin, Mayor Scott Slifka and Deputy Mayor Shari Cantor to hear about the projects. He said he's spent his first few months in office "visiting towns that are new to me, outside the 5th district."

West Hartford will be impacted by the federal sequester cuts in several areas, including funding for free and reduced-cost school lunch and Community Development Block Grants, according to Van Winkle.

The town gets "$7 million in federal funding, the majority of which goes to schools," Van Winkle said. "I would doubt that West Hartford would turn it's back on those children. We would either cut funds elsewhere or raise taxes to fund those programs.

But other important projects need federal funding and aren't as easy to cover through local tax increases or cuts.

The town has requested federal funding before for the culvert project on the UConn campus, Van Winkle said. About 30 properties in the area repeatedly get flooded during rainstorms, and Albany Avenue sometimes has to be closed.

A $5 million project to widen the culverts and open watercourses along Trout Brook would alleviate the problem, according to Martin.

Murphy said the "next chance" to fund the project would likely be under a reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, which he said could be introduced in the next couple years.

The officials also discussed an upcoming Department of Transportation project that would reconfigure the I-84 on- and off- ramps on Park Road to ease congestion in the area and make it safer.

"It's high on the DOT's list for high-accident locations. That's not what we want for the gateway to our community," Martin said.